Alika’s POVThe red glow from the Fourth Gate pulsed against my skin, like it was trying to replace my heartbeat with its own.My mother hung suspended in the air.Her body—barely human anymore—was wrapped in chains that moved like they were alive. Her eyes were shut, but her mouth opened slowly as if tasting the silence.I tried to speak.Nothing came out.And then—something moved behind her.One by one, they emerged. Dozens of them. Maybe more. All in tattered wedding gowns, veils torn, feet bare and covered in ash. The cursed brides. Each one carried something.A piece of bone.A vial of blood.A scrap of black lace.And one of them—taller than the rest, her veil as long as a train of smoke—stepped forward.In her hands, she held it.The crown.Made of dead rose petals and twisted metal. The thorns still wet with something darker than blood. It pulsed faintly, as though alive.I took a step back. Ethan—or what was left of him—stood behind me. He didn’t say a word.The tallest bride
Alika’s POVI didn’t move.Not even when Sybilla floated closer—dragging that other me behind her like a puppet on invisible strings.It was me. But not.Her eyes were hollow. Skin pale, lips bloodless. She wore the same dress. The same necklace Ethan gave me on our first night. But the look on her face... it wasn’t mine. It was the face of someone who had already decided.“This is the version of you,” Sybilla said calmly, “who chose to finish it.”The sword in her hand—my hand—dripped with something that wasn’t blood, but something older. Darker. The kind of liquid that dreams about dying but never gets to.Ethan stepped forward, placing himself between me and the shadow version of myself. His voice was quiet. “She’s not real, Alika.”Sybilla laughed softly. “She’s real enough to do what you can’t.”And then she vanished.Only the other me remained.And she charged.Ethan shoved me back just as the sword came down. He caught it with his bare hands. Blood sprayed across the wall behin
Alika’s POVI stood in the middle of nothing.No sky. No ground. No color.Just me… and three doors looming in front of me, each made of something that felt more than wood or metal.The first said PAST. It was gray, covered in claw marks, like it had been attacked again and again by something desperate.The second—PRESENT. A mirror. My reflection kept changing. One moment I looked fifteen, the next I was bleeding, crying, holding something broken in my hands.The third—FUTURE. This door was pitch black, and even though it was shut, I could hear a sound leaking from behind it—a low, guttural groan. Familiar. Almost human.I stepped forward.No voices. No Sybilla. No Ethan.Only me.And the knocking.Three times.Soft. Deep. Like it came from behind my own ribs.I reached for the third door—future.The moment I touched it, it creaked open.—I didn’t see the sword first.I saw myself.Standing tall in a wedding gown, spine straight, arms strong. My face wasn’t afraid anymore. It was col
Throughout the history of spirits, there were gates opened by blood—and others opened by will.The first was opened by Sybilla.The second, by Alika.And the third… was opened by something older than both of them.When the altar shattered, the earth didn’t just collapse—it split like old skin that had held its breath too long. From the cracks below, light poured forth. But not the light of fire or stars. It was something more ancient, like memory pulsing through the marrow of the world.Alika stood at the edge of the ruin, still clutching the fragment of Anindya’s heart, when the first voice came.It did not come from any creature.It rose from the foundation of that realm itself.“The third gate is open.”There was no thunder.No storm.Only a shift in air.As if every spirit—freed or not—had drawn breath at once. And time… folded.Suddenly, the broken altar gave way to a deep descent. But instead of fire or bone or the coils of hell, there was a staircase. Not spiraling like the one
Alika’s POVI woke up at a table that shouldn't exist.The room was silent. But not peaceful.The table was long, endless, stretching across what felt like the spine of death itself. Black candles burned at its edges, casting no warmth—only pale light, like something bleeding from bone.At the far end, my chair was the only one still empty.And across from me—The brides.Twelve of them.Seated in silence, faces veiled in blood-stained lace, like corpses prepped for display. They didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. But they weren’t completely gone. Not here.One by one, they turned to face me.And together, they spoke—not with voices, but something deeper:"Welcome, final bride."I didn’t sit. My hand trembled as I touched the back of the chair. My voice barely came out. “What is this?”They didn’t answer at first.One of them—the one seated closest—lifted the lid from the plate before her. Steam burst upward. The smell hit instantly.Flesh.Cooked with strange herbs, too sweet, too sharp. B
Alika’s POVThe first step felt light. Almost too light—like I wasn’t really touching the ground.The corridor ahead curved downward in a spiral, slowly closing off all sense of direction. There was no sound but my own heartbeat and the echo of my footsteps, which no longer felt like mine. The walls were old stone, damp and slick with moss that had no scent. Every few meters, a mirror hung—neither metallic nor glass, but something that absorbed and reflected light all at once. Like a spirit’s skin, hardened into reflection.I kept walking.One step.Then another.And in the first mirror, I saw myself—but something had changed.The creases under my eyes had vanished. The cuts on my lips were gone. I looked… two years younger.I stopped.Stared at the reflection.It looked back. Then smiled faintly.I didn’t smile.I kept going.The stairs kept spiraling, endlessly downward.The second mirror—twenty years old.Brighter eyes. Less exhaustion in my cheeks. I was wearing a white shirt I us